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Hi, I'm new here so this may have been asked before, I'm thinking of getting some peafowl, wife's idea!, we've got 30 acres but much is in forestry so I know I have space, but I'm worried about things like our dogs, foxes, will they fly off!? Any advice welcome!

[Richmond]

Peafowl can be quite tricky to keep. Ideally you need to hatch them on your property so they grow up being familiar with their environment. Presume you are planning for them to free range rather than keeping them in an aviary?

I had one attempt at keeping peafowl some years ago - bought some youngsters in but despite following seller's instructions to keep penned for at least a month before releasing, as soon as they were let out they flew to the top of the nearest tree and gradually moved further and further away - ultimately ending up on the roof of someone's house in the village a mile away! Cue myself and husband with landing net trying to get birds down and catch them - took all afternoon. House owner very amused! We persevered with them for a while longer but ultimately they insisted on taking to the woods each time we tried letting them out and eventually we just let them be. They took themselves off to live with someone else who already had peafowl - I'm guessing they heard them calling across the fields - so it might be worth you doing some research to see if anyone else in your area has them.

As to foxes etc, they are as vulnerable as any other free ranging poultry, particularly if the females go broody as they are ground nesting birds.

[Womble]

We have peafowl. Actually no, the peafowl have us - we moved into their farm.

They're semi-wild, but queue up for a handful of peanuts before bedtime each night. They roost in the trees, or sometimes on the roof of the house, and eat layer's pellets from the hen feeder. They are noisy, but only really between March and July (breeding season).


The usual advice, as Richmond says is to keep them penned for at least a month, so they centre their range on your property, and know that's where the food is. They do have homing instincts though, and have been known to travel 30+ miles cross country to get back to where they came from.


We've never lost one to a fox, though we have lost a couple of nests with eggs, and one hen was injured fighting off a fox. As Richmond says, they're pretty vulnerable when sitting on the nest. Chick mortality is also pretty high IME, at least until the chicks are reasonably grown, so are strong and can fly. In general, they'll just fly up a tree and make a lot of noise if threatened by a fox or dog though.


I'd say definitely get some - they're fascinating, intelligent birds. We absolutely love 'ours'.

[ryaldinhio]

Get ready for the complaints stacking up. There were some in our village which we didn't mind, we actually had a peahen nesting on one of our shed ones year unsuccessfully.

However......they can be noisy which upset a few and the males love fighting with their own reflection! Whether that was my old ford focus, the patio doors........or the neighbours aston martin!!!

After terrorising the village for a while they disappeared overnight, nothing to do with me but I'm guessing they didn't just fly off 

We quite miss them to be honest but we didn't have expensive motors with hefty damage!

[Womble]

Hmmmm, either our peacocks are cleverer than that, or I don't keep my Aston Martin clean enough for him to see his own reflection!?